Patterns in Nature: Rainbows

Denali Highway, Alaska

Photograph by Rich Reid

A rainbow stretches over a section of the 670-mile-long (1,100-kilometer-long) Denali Highway in Alaska. Rainbows are a simple, ordered display of visible light reflected off of water droplets in the atmosphere.

Arctic Rainbow

Photograph by Paul Nicklen

A rainbow is reflected in Arctic icy waters in Canada's Foxe Basin. Data from submarines suggest that Arctic sea ice has thinned by 40 percent in the past 30 years. As more water is exposed, the upper ocean absorbs more sunshine, speeding up the decline.

Rainbow Car

Photograph by Paul Nicklen

The end of a rainbow spotlights a solitary car traveling down a remote road in North America. Since a rainbow is an optical illusion, it doesn't have an actual endpoint. Instead, a rainbow's position continually shifts depending on the viewer's perspective.

Rainbow Over Baobab Tree

Photograph by Beverly Joubert

A rainbow graces skies above the Mombo region of Botswana's Okavango Delta, home to the Moremi Game Reserve, elusive leopards, and lurking hyenas. Baobab trees such as this one can provide some relief from the sweltering heat.

Alaska Highway Rainbow

Photograph by Raymond Gehman

Like a portal to wild spaces, a double rainbow hangs over the Alaska Highway in British Columbia, Canada. While rainbows display a brilliant array of colors, most of the radiation in the universe, from very long wavelengths picked up by radios to ultrashort ones seen by special x-ray and gamma-ray detectors, lies outside the rainbow of visible light.

Rainbow Over Soybean Field

Tundra Rainbows

Photograph by Joel Sartore

Rainbows brighten Alaska's tundra, parts of which are estimated to hold millions of barrels of oil. The tundra is also home to caribou, an important source of sustenance in regions such as Alaska's North Slope.